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Help:Policies
__NOSHAREDHELP__ :Be sure to read our as well! Policy is a term referring to the processes and rules observed involving the creation, editing, and management of articles on the Overwatch Wiki as well as treatment of other users. Violating an Overwatch Wiki policy will, at the very least, lead to a page being edited to conform to policy. Edits or new pages that are created that do not conform to a specific policy are subject to change by another user (assuming that change conforms with policy) without expectation of appeal to an admin, as is all content within the site. However, it may also lead to the page being deleted or — for the worst offenses — it may lead to the poster being declared a vandal and become banned or blocked. Treatment of users who engage in destruction of content, harassment, or misuse of content (spam) is also governed by policy. Bots The only people permitted to use bots on the Overwatch Wiki are Wikia staff, bureaucrats, administrators, and members of the VSTF. Categories The majority of categories are included in the templates used on pages. In the event categories need to be added, please make sure those categories are taken from Category:Overwatch. Content deletion When a page is obvious spam, is deprecated by a new page and has no need to be redirected, or for some other reason you think it should be removed from the wiki, then you can mark it as a candidate for deletion (via Template:Delete). Please use discretion when doing this as it is a direct violation of the spirit of a wiki if not the policy of this wiki — it destroys the atmosphere of trust and collaboration. Administrators will then make the determination as to whether the page should be deleted. DNP DNP stands for Do Not Post. Things on this list should not be posted anywhere on the Overwatch Wiki. Some of them are specifically banned and will get you banned if you persist in posting them. *Copyrighted content *Exploits *Off-topic content *Defamatory or false content *Discrimination *Non-English content *Nonsense or mostly empty pages *Pornography, adult or mature content *Violent content *Excessive profanity *Gambling or casino-related content *Illicit drugs and drug paraphernalia content *Any other content that is illegal, promotes illegal activity, or infringes on the legal rights of others Disruptive editing Users who persist in disruptive editing will be banned. Disruptive editing is a pattern of edits, which may extend over a considerable period of time or number of articles, that has the effect of *disrupting progress toward improving an article, or *disrupting progress toward the fundamental project of building the Overwatch Wiki. Three-revert rule A contributor must not perform more than three reversions, in whole or in part, on a single Overwatch Wiki article within a 24-hour period. This does not imply that reverting three times or fewer is acceptable. In excessive cases, people can be blocked for edit warring or disruption even if they do not revert more than three times per day. For the purposes of counting reverts, these are excluded: *reverting your own changes *fixing simple vandalism *removing posts made by a banned or blocked user Using multiple accounts to avoid this limit is also a violation of policy. Any reversions beyond this limit should be performed by somebody else, to serve the vital purpose of showing that the community at large is in agreement over which of two (or more) competing versions is correct. This policy applies to repeatedly moving, renaming, deleting, undeleting, or recreating a page. All of these, if done excessively, are forms of edit warring. Non-official content Fan art Non-official art is allowable in some cases: *it is high quality, as determined solely by administrators *it is attributed to the artist *it adheres to the following sections of the DNP policy, specifically avoiding **copyrighted content **pornography, adult, or mature content **profanity Fan art is to be placed only on hero gallery subpages in the Images section as a Fan art subsection. Fan fiction Fan fiction articles are not allowed in the main content article space. Users who wish to publish their fan fiction, provided the contents therein do not violate any other policy, should post the fiction as a subpage of their user page, i.e.: Username/Fan fiction title Videos Non-official videos are allowed in limited scope and quantity on the site. Videos pertaining to individual heroes should be placed in the hero's gallery subpage in the Video section; these types of videos should always be placed after official videos in the gallery list. In all cases, only the highest-quality videos will be permitted out of those submitted. The following videos are allowed: *"How to play" videos, specific to individual heroes **Three total allowed per hero, not per user *Short clips of abilities in action, provided there is no official version **One allowed per ability page, not per user *Videos that show the location of Easter eggs in the game **One allowed per map page, not per user *Videos that enable users to hear voice lines and/or emotes - please note that the majority of these are already finished **Number is variable, depending on the video contents. In the extreme, one allowed for voice lines and one allowed for emotes per hero, not per user The following videos are not allowed: *Streaming *Lore **This information is already present on the page, so feel free to contribute in written fashion. *Speculation *Duplicate videos *Off-topic videos *Outdated videos *Videos that violate the DNP policy *Non-English Vandalism This is the definition of vandalism for the purposes of this policy: *Removing valid content without explanation or an explanation that makes no sense. *Items listed in the Do not post policy. *Pretending to remove other vandalism content in order to prevent cleaning. This includes minor edits or minor removals while leaving a bulk of unwanted content ("spam"), but making a comment as if you removed the unwanted content. *Continuing a particular behavior or practice after being warned or 'asked not to' by moderators. *Any edit or change otherwise made in bad faith, is deceptive, or purposefully degrades the surrounding section, page, or wiki as a whole. Administrators are largely left to their own judgement as to the length of a ban, however: anonymous IP blocks should not exceed three months.